Research from Parks Associates’ new whitepaper, Reaching Today’s Video Audiences: Platform Diversity and ROI, reports that nearly 70% of US broadband households own at least one streaming video product that is connected to the internet. The whitepaper, developed in partnership with Bitmovin, the Emmy Award-winning world leader in digital video technology, examines the increasing variety of device platforms consumers use both in and outside the home to view video content. It also discusses the potential tradeoffs, complexities, and ROI challenges presented when attempting to deploy broad platform support.
Ownership of smart TVs and streaming media players continues to rise, and gaming console ownership has held steady after several years of losses. Consumers have fully embraced streaming services, with more than 80% of broadband households having at least one service and 49% having four or more services.
“The streaming video market has experienced increased service usage, and consumers are watching streamed video content on multiple devices in the home and increasingly from multiple services,” said Paul Erickson, Director, Research, Parks Associates. “The role of streaming video across multiple platforms is more important than ever before in the entertainment mix for consumers.”
Fifty-six percent of US broadband households now own a smart TV. More than half of those households are now using the smart TV as the device they access most frequently to watch streaming video. The increase in connected TV devices and viewership in turn has driven growth in the average number of hours per week of video consumed.
“The video developer community is seeing similar growth in their applications targeting multiple platforms, as OTT services support 10% more devices than they did last year,” said James Varndell, Senior Product Manager for Bitmovin Player. “Given how many different platforms providers must support to reach their diverse global audience, developers need to consider all of the factors to launch on a new device, such as development costs, ongoing testing and support, error reduction, and more.”
Seventy-two percent of broadband households are engaging in multiplatform streaming video viewing, and 40% are viewing on all platforms available to them. “Consumer adoption of multiple streaming video services may slow, but their comfort with streaming content will persist—the connected home is now permanently a multiplatform environment,” said Erickson.
